


Portions for Foxes

by Hibou_Gris



Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fuckbuddies, Post-Season/Series 02, this is not a happy story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-27 23:08:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16711771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hibou_Gris/pseuds/Hibou_Gris
Summary: Walker brings her gifts.





	Portions for Foxes

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the song "Portions for Foxes" by Rilo Kiley.

Walker brings her gifts.

It takes Joy a while to notice. She’s got a lot on her mind, between all the things that she has to remember and all the things she’s trying to forget.

She has to get her business off the ground. She has to call the right people, say the right things, produce the right numbers - but no in-person meetings or video-conferences, not while she still looks like a domestic violence PSA (Ward’s face when he told her about Dad, when he said, “I was his punching bag,” but no - that’s one of the things she’s working on forgetting).

She has to take her pills - the antibiotics and pain-killers and muscle relaxants for her various injuries. She sets up a series of alarms on her phone, and they wake her up when she’s fallen asleep on the couch or nodded off at her desk. The one place where she’s not sleeping is in her bed at night, of-fucking-course. She lies on her back and stares at the ceiling, and her leg hurts and her arm hurts and her head hurts, each in their own very special way.

The worst nights are when she does sleep, and dreams of falling.

Davos is still out there, though technically imprisoned (she is definitely trying to forget that, but in the middle of the night it’s impossible). She keeps the loaded gun on her nightstand, which is stupid, but necessary. She reaches out and touches it sometimes, very carefully, and it keeps her from panicking at every damn creak and rustle she hears during the night.

Walker is still out there - and sometimes, she is in fact _in here_ , in Joy’s apartment with her, which is frankly fucking terrifying. Walker shows up at least once a week, sometimes more, demanding information, favors, and occasionally, conversation. Joy looks at her incredulously the first time Walker drops down onto her sofa, clanks a bottle of bourbon onto the coffee table, and says, “Let’s share.”

“Seriously?” Joy says, still standing in the middle of the room. She leaves the gun in the bedroom now, when Walker comes over, and her hands flex against her crutches.

Walker looks up at her, amused. “I’m short on drinking buddies these days. Come on. Sit down.”

Joy sits down, propping her crutches up against the sofa, and takes a slug out of the bottle, which makes Walker laugh. Despite her talk of drinking buddies, Walker doesn’t say much, just takes a swallow of bourbon and stares out the window. It’s snowing outside, and Walker’s cheeks and nose are still pink with cold. It makes her look younger, softer, and Joy looks away. Poison doesn’t know it’s poison.

“It’s my birthday,” Walker says, and Joy turns to her in surprise, but Walker is still looking out the window.

“Happy birthday,” Joy says after a moment, deadpan, and Walker’s mouth twitches up at the corner.

 

Danny sends her a text: _thank you for the bowl_

Joy doesn’t reply, because she has no idea what to say to that. She doesn’t want to think about Danny, about what she did for him, or about what she did _to_  him.

Ward sends her a text: _I’m going to Hong Kong with Danny. Call if you need me._

Joy replies: _Okay,_  because the only other option is: _What the fuck_ , and she’s not ready to have a real conversation with Ward yet. She has enough to deal with as it is.

Walker doesn’t text, doesn’t call. She just turns up, like a stray cat that you fed once and now thinks it owns the place.

Walker strides into Joy’s apartment and says things like, “I need a contact at the New York Bulletin. Who do you guys usually bribe there?” and “Hey, call up your rich friends and get me an invitation to the Stark Industries party.” She drops expensive liquor, cheap Chinese food, and once, a set of lock-picks onto Joy’s coffee table.

“Lock-picks?”

Walker smirks at her. “Ask me nicely one day and I’ll show you how to use them.”

Joy rolls her eyes and tosses them back on the table, but she makes a mental note to take Walker up on it when she has two fully functioning arms again - no point in passing up a possible advantage.

 

She’s lying in bed one night, trying to decide if she should just give up on sleep and try to get some work done instead, when she hears the apartment’s front door open. She scrabbles for the gun, her whole body going numb and cold with fear.

“Joy?” Walker’s voice rings out from the main room, and Joy breathes out in a long huff of air, releasing her grip on the gun. She climbs out of bed and limps out of the bedroom, not bothering with the knee brace she’s supposed to wear now that she’s off the crutches.

Walker is standing in her kitchen, riffling through her freezer. She’s dressed in utilitarian black, the kind of clothes she wears when she’s on a job where there might be fighting. Or killing.

“Why are you here?” Joy asks wearily.

Walker glances at her, and Joy sees that one side of her face is bruised and bloody. She’s stuffing ice cubes from the freezer into a zip-lock bag.

“Hi,” Walker says, as casually as if they had just bumped into each other on the sidewalk. “I was doing a job nearby, and a lot of heat came down unexpectedly. Just gonna lie low here for a couple of hours.”

Joy watches as Walker finishes filling the bag with ice, grabs a bottle of vodka from behind the bar, and then stretches out on the sofa, her boots still on. Tilting her head back, she presses the bag of ice against her face with a hiss.

“Sure, whatever,” Joy says. “Make yourself at home. I’m going back to bed.” She starts back towards the bedroom, then hesitates. She makes a detour to the linen closet first, yanks out a hand towel, and tosses it at Walker on the sofa. Walker catches it one-handed, blinking at her in surprise.

“For the ice,” Joy says. She’s angry without exactly knowing why. “You’re not supposed to put it directly on your bare skin.”

Walker stares at her. “Thanks,” she says, slowly.

Joy spins around and marches back to the bedroom, walking as upright as she can, and closes the door behind her.

She gets back in bed, but she doesn’t sleep. A few hours later she hears Walker leave, and finally closes her eyes.

 

The next time Walker comes by, a week later, her bruises are mostly faded and she’s her usual brusque self, but she leaves a tub of muscle relief gel on the counter on her way out. Joy doesn’t notice it until after Walker’s gone; it’s high quality stuff, with a citrusy scent instead of the usual blast of menthol.

“You left this,” Joy says, when Walker turns up again, in the evening this time, with take-out bags full of Thai food.

“It’s for you,” Walker says, around a mouthful of food. In response to Joy’s flat look, she adds, “For your leg, and shoulder, to use after PT sessions.”

“Oh,” Joy says.

Walker looks down, stabbing at her noodles. “You should have a TV in here.”

“You - want to watch TV?”

“Minnesota’s playing Chicago,” Walker says, shrugging.

“Sure,” Joy says, blankly. She’ll have to google whatever sport Walker’s talking about later. She reaches for a spring roll, her arm at last free of the stupid sling. “I’ll get right on that.”

Walker leaves behind a shoulder holster on one of the chairs. It’s mostly leather, broken-in but well made. Joy stares at it for a long time.

 

Joy’s been distracted, but she’s not completely oblivious, so when Walker shows up in a leather jacket and high heels with a bottle of red wine one night, Joy’s not particularly shocked when Walker slides closer to her on the sofa and puts her hand on Joy’s thigh.

“You wanna?” Walker says, tilting her head towards the bedroom.

“That’s your line?” Joy says, because really, and ignores the way her pulse has started beating hard in her throat.

Walker smiles, quick and sly. “You want me to try harder?”

“I - ” Joy says, and then stops. She’s already decided to go through with this, weighed all the risks versus the benefits. Going to bed with Walker will be like going to bed with a razor blade, but Joy’s done more dangerous things for worse reasons. Walker’s beautiful, in her sharp hard way, and goddamnit, it would be good to - to _feel_ something again, something other than pain and guilt and gnawing fear.

But she freezes up, can’t find the right words for this script (“It’s just sex,” she told Davos months ago, a thousand years ago). Her mouth is too dry, and she swallows, the silence stretching.

Walker stops smiling, takes her hand off Joy’s leg, and Joy tenses. But Walker only leans back on the sofa, her face gone still and serious.

“I’m just making the offer,” she says quietly. “If you say no, I won’t be pissed.”

Joy takes a deep breath, and then gets to her feet, walks to the doorway of the bedroom. She turns back; Walker is watching her from the sofa, unmoving.

“Ground rules,” Joy says. “You don’t touch my neck, and you check in with me before you try anything creative.”

Walker rises from the sofa in one graceful motion, and comes over to stand in front of Joy. “I can live with that.”

Joy lifts her hand and runs it slowly down Walker’s arm, collarbone to fingertips. Walker shivers. Joy wraps her fingers around Walker’s wrist and starts walking backwards into the bedroom, tugging Walker along with her.

They fuck on the bed, Joy on her back with Walker’s hands holding her still, her mouth taking her apart. Joy closes her eyes and tilts her head back, clutches the bed-sheets, she doesn’t know what kind of noises she’s making and right now she doesn’t care, she just wants Walker to - to -

Afterwards she’s still shaking, unsteady, but she pulls Walker up from between her legs and kisses her, hard and deep. Walker kisses her back bitingly, almost angrily, but her body melts against Joy’s. Joy gets her bra off, puts her mouth on Walker’s white skin, the soft pink of her nipple, and Walker’s making a noise that’s like crying, and Joy stops, trying to get a look at Walker’s face.

“Jesus Christ, don’t stop,” Walker says, half-snarl and half-whine, and Joy grins, puts her head back down and sucks hard on Walker’s nipple until she _wails_.

They don’t talk about it after, to Joy’s complete lack of surprise; Walker’s the polar opposite of the touchy-feely type, and Joy’s spent an egregious amount of money to hear therapists tell her that she “puts up a lot of emotional walls”, like, no shit. Walker leaves almost immediately, putting her clothes and shoes back on and then heading out the door without so much as an “I’ll call you.”

After the door closes, Joy picks the duvet up from where they’d kicked it to the floor, and flops back down on the bed. She expects another restless night, but instead falls asleep nearly as soon as she closes her eyes.

 

Walker’s back a few days later, all business at first. She’s wearing a black hoodie with a long black coat over top; Joy gets the feeling that there’s some serious weaponry stashed under it.

“There’s a fundraiser tomorrow for Sterling Therapeutics - it’s one of Rand’s subsidiaries, and I need an in,” Walker says. She sounds normal enough, but she won’t meet Joy’s eyes, her gaze skittering away towards the windows.

Joy crosses her arms and leans against the bedroom doorway. “Wow, sweet-talker,” Joy says. “Did you even bring me flowers?”

Walker looks at her sharply, but then smiles her narrow fox smile. “No, baby, something better.” She bends over, tugs something out of the side of her boot, and holds it out to Joy.

Joy raises her eyebrow and reaches out to take it from Walker’s hand. It’s a switchblade, small and black and sleek.

“A pretty knife for a pretty lady,” Walker says. It sounds less like a joke then it should.

Joy closes her hand around it, her fingers brushing against Walker’s palm.

“Thanks,” Joy says. She turns away before she gives in to the sudden impulse to kiss her, and puts the knife next to the gun on her nightstand. When she walks back out to the main room, Walker is staring out the windows again. It’s been threateningly cloudy all day, and the rain has just started to pour down, clattering against the glass. Lightening flashes, bright in the dim grayness of the room.

“I should turn on the lights,” Joy says, mostly to herself, but Walker spins around to face her, her eyes wide and startled.

“Joy!” she says. “Oh, it’s been so long, I’m so glad you’re all right. I didn’t know for sure if - ”

She hurries towards Joy and grabs her hands, beaming. “But here you are!”

Joy breathes out, one long exhale, and then smiles back as brightly as she can. “Mary. Hi.”

“Hi,” Mary echoes softly, still holding Joy’s hands, their fingers interlacing.

Joy pulls away, stepping to the side and gesturing at the bar. “It’s - good to see you again. Do you want a drink?”

“Oh, um, I don’t know, do you have tea?” Mary says, looking around at Joy’s apartment. She pushes at her bangs, starts tugging her hair out of its neat pony-tail. “Is this your home?”

“Yes, this is where I live,” Joy says, heading for the bar anyway; God knows _she_ could use a drink. “I don’t have tea, do you want coffee?” She grabs the bottle of Macallan and holds it up. “Or - scotch?”

“I guess I could try some,” Mary says. She’s wandering around the apartment, looking out the windows, running her hands gently on top of the furniture. “Joy, this place is beautiful!”

“Thank you,” Joy says. She picks up two glasses and then stops. Mary’s peeking in the bedroom, her back to Joy, and a very quiet, very cold part of Joy’s brain thinks, you could kill her right now. If you do it fast, she won’t be able to stop you. Eliminate the threat, and you can be safe.

Joy’s hands are shaking. She puts the glasses down on the bar before she drops them. She can’t, she can’t - but no, that’s a lie, because she _could_ , the same way she could have Danny drugged and kidnapped and tortured. She feels sick, and she has to hold on to the bar and drop her head down, swallow hard.

“Joy?” Mary says, from across the room. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, just - getting ice. Go ahead and sit down,” Joy says, lifting her head up and picking up the glasses again. Mary smiles at her and goes to sit on the sofa.

Joy grits her teeth, dumps some ice in the glasses and then carries them over to the sofa along with the bottle of whisky. She puts it all down on the coffee table and pours the drinks; her hands have mercifully stopped shaking.

She sits down on the sofa next to Mary and holds out her glass with a small fake smile. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” Mary says, and clinks glasses with her. She takes a sip of whisky and makes a face. “Wow.”

“Drink it slowly,” Joy says, resisting the urge to drain her entire glass in one go. She sips it instead, feels the burn of alcohol in her throat; hopes that it’ll steady her nerves. The rain is still falling hard against the windows, and Joy hears thunder rumbling in the distance.

Mary shifts closer to her. “You know, I was really worried about you. I tried - well, I tried to ask Walker about you - I left her notes asking if you were okay, but she wouldn’t answer. I didn’t see anything in the news so - but I wasn’t sure.”

“I’m fine,” Joy says, and tries to sound reassuring and not like she’s lying through her teeth. “Walker helped me, and Davos is in prison now.”

“Oh, good,” Mary says, naked relief on her face, and Joy has to look away; she stares down at her drink, swirling the whisky in the glass and hearing the ice cubes clink.

Mary reaches out and touches Joy’s hand, soft and tentative. “I - I drew a picture of you. I’ll bring it for you, next time.”

Joy lifts her head up in surprise, and Mary leans forward and kisses her, just a brush of her mouth against Joy’s. Joy jerks back, hard, and she doesn’t know what expression she’s wearing but Mary’s eyes widen in dismay.

“I’m sorry, Joy, I’m sorry,” Mary says quickly, words tripping over each other, “please don’t be - I thought that you -”

Joy shakes her head, says, “It’s - okay, it’s fine,” but Mary keeps talking.

“I just - I get so lonely sometimes, you know?” Mary says, and her voice is pleading. “Don’t you get lonely?”

It hits like a bullet to the gut, like a shove over a railing’s edge, and Joy drops her drink and covers her face with her hands because she’s sobbing, crying harder than she has since her dad died (the first time). The glass lands on the floor and shatters, spraying liquor and shards everywhere. Mary is touching Joy’s shoulder, a feather-light spot of warmth, and whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” and Joy falls and falls.

~


End file.
